For once, officials at the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District say one of their top projects for the past year can't be found underground. When they take account of their best work in 2016, they are just as likely to point to the top of the Northwestern Mutual Commons building.

Now that the focus of the Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons has shifted to landscaping and interior work, officials with the insurance company are looking back on the milestones the $450 million construction project reached in 2016.

An Indiana company is alleging in a federal lawsuit that general contractor C.G. Schmidt has stiffed it on thousands of tons of steel and other materials supplied for the Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons project.